What’s in a Name?

Women supporting other women is our founding principle. The sentiment? That women can go further and grow stronger when they reach out to help other women succeed rather than competing against them.

But the first recorded use of the phrase Lift as You Climb goes back a long way. It was spoken in a very different context by Mary Church Terrell, a civil rights leader, women’s rights advocate and founder of the National Association of Coloured Women. Born in 1863 in Memphis, Tennessee, she saw that white women were not representing all women in their fight for suffrage and pledged to do it herself. Over the years she spoke out for suffrage, advocating reforms including desegregation, educational equality and equal opportunity.

We are keen to recognise and celebrate her work. And to help build on her legacy. Which is why diversity is one of our core values.

“And so, lifting as we climb, onward and upward we go, struggling and striving, and hoping that the buds and blossoms of our desires will burst into glorious fruition ere long.”